Darwin Changes His Mind

In 1831, Charles Darwin, twenty-two years old and a student of the ministry at Cambridge University, signed on to accompany the captain of the HMS Beagle on a voyage to survey the poorly known coastal areas of South America. Young Darwin’s account of this five-year journey became one of the world’s great travel books—The Voyage of the Beagle—but his experience also led him toward a theory of evolution that overthrew the most fundamental beliefs of man’s place in the world. And a key encounter in this regard was Darwin’s visit to the Galapagos Islands with its myriad species.